ETSU welcomed guest director Nakeisha Daniel, who is resident member of the Charleston Stage Company, for ETSU’s production of For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf by Ntozake Shange.
The production, which was co-sponsored by Division of Theatre, Women’s Studies, Office of Equity and Diversity took place in the Bud Frank Theatre in Gilbreath Hall this past weekend.
For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf consists of poems read by seven different women all who represent a color. All seven colors of the rainbow (red, yellow, orange, green, blue and purple) and brown, which is the color you get when you mix all of the other colors.
It was written in the ’70s and was first performed in 1975 when social movements were current and the poems dealt with issues of women in that society. The issues that women dealt with then are still relevant in today’s culture.
“The issues are still prevalent in our society, but are downplayed these days,” Daniel said.
Shange wrote the poems and meant for them to be thought provoking. They were meant to get reactions from diverse audiences, not just for women.
“Take what you get from it and connect your personal experiences,” Daniel said.
Many of the poems can be interpreted differently.
Along with prose, the women in the production used dance to express themselves and to convey a message to the audience. The woman used their movement to show joy, sadness and seduction.
“Women use music and dance to help them cope with things they deal with in life,” Daniel said.
Daniel and others involved in the production choose to use a color blind cast to bridge the gap of race and age, four women of color and three Caucasian.
The women and their poems were meant to push the envelope and show society that the things they spoke about like rape, abortion and other aspects of womanhood could happen to anyone colored or not.
The set was like a canvas. Plain, blank and ready for the women to create their world for the audience to see. This was done by using lights, music and slides to assist the seven women on telling their stories. The costumes were African inspired and were loose with bold shades of the rainbow that accentuated each of the women.
For Colored Girls who have Considered Suicide When The Rainbow is Enuf came to life on stage.
The seven women played off each other beautifully and had perfect chemistry. It was a journey through issues of womanhood that was sometimes uncomfortable, yet necessary and served up some comic relief to balance it out.

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